Sydney Gutierrez, a student at Vista Ridge High School, speaks about alleged sexual assaults that have occurred in stairwells at the school during a Leander School Board meeting on Thursday, March 5. Gutierrez asked the school board to install surveillance cameras in the stairwells. DEBORAH CANNON / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

How “serious” does sexual assault have to be before school administrators are willing to do something about it?

That’s the real question at Vista Ridge High School in the Leander school district, where a 18-year-old Sydney Gutierrez has asked the school board to install security cameras in her high school’s stairwells.

Gutierrez says that she was assaulted twice at the school, once as a freshman and once as a junior, in the stairwells during class time. Both times, she said, the male students forcibly kissed her, groped her and the second one tore at her clothes as she fought to get away.

She has chosen not to name the males students involved and has instead asked the school to install cameras in its seven stairwells. Other students have since come forward. The district says that they have no data to suggest that the school has a sexually assault problem, and they’ve urged Gutierrez to name her attackers and get counseling.

Reasonable advice, but why the school district would resist adding surveillance cameras is a mystery to me.

Installing cameras does not require proof of anything other than the fact that the school has a blind spot, or seven of them to be precise in this case.

Why on earth would Gutierrez, or any other victim of sexual assault or bullying, identify their tormentors and open themselves up to further assault or bullying on a campus that has already proven to be unsafe? Reporting such assaults usually opens up a “he said, she said” case, which rarely produces a real winner, even when charges are filed. Besides, chances are high that what the girls on campus want is to feel safe, not to give their fellow students criminal records as sex offenders.

It’s likely that the installation of the cameras will result in nothing being seen. Frankly, that is the point. If students know they are being watched, the stairwells will no longer be preferred places for potential nefarious conduct: assault, bullying, drugs, consensual (but still inappropriate) sexual contact. Even if one of the statements the school received last night proves true — that is one too many.

Frankly, I’m impressed by the young women who spoke at Thursday’s school board meeting. Girls are taught from a young age to expect and accept a certain about of sexual harassment.

I spent most of middle school running home from the bus stop because an older boy felt like it was okay to flip up my skirt every day. It was humiliating. Even though I quickly learned to wear shorts underneath my skirts, I still felt violated. It never occurred to me to tell anyone; and if it had, I don’t think I would have named names. I still had to ride the bus; I still had to live in the neighborhood. Even if an adult had taken my side, I likely would have been mocked by my peers for not being able to take a “joke.”

After all, complaints to adults about boys popping my bra straps were met with “well that must mean he likes you.” And the advice I received about addressing lewd comments about my developing body was to ignore it, “that’s just the way that boys behave.” Why would I expect anything short of physical injury to get a different reaction that would actually change the situation?

There is a Facebook post going circulating the past few weeks, where a mother in the U.K. describes getting called to school because her daughter punched a boy who kept pulling her bra strap, after the teacher failed to stop it. The mom, rather bluntly reminds the school that both episodes are assault and if her daughter should be punished, then so should the boy.

Moms in Austin, friends of mine, are posting high-fives and “atta-girls”. Unwelcome groping is more serious than bra popping — but both are assault. This stuff happens, and I expect that Vista Ridge is not the only high school in Central Texas that is oblivious to it or not taking it as seriously as they should.

Title IX, the federal law being used to hold universities accountable for sexual assault, applies to public schools as well. I’d argue that being in fear of being sexually accosted in the high school hallway constitutes a hostile educational environment. Campus administrators should not wait until something horrific gets reported to the police, in part, because it cannot be hidden.

Thank you, Sydney Gutierrez, for speaking up.

I’d say to school administrators at Vista Ridge and throughout Central Texas, find your blind spots. Then buy some cameras.

View Comments
0

There are no comments yet. Be the first to post your thoughts. Sign in or register.